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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23938618">Let the World Come Down</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin'>kaeorin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Loki's Lullabies [36]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Affection, Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Lullabies, Rain, Reader-Insert</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:34:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,500</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23938618</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When you go looking for Loki early one morning, you find him looking out at the city streets. You have a moment together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Loki (Marvel)/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Loki's Lullabies [36]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>186</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Let the World Come Down</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was another grey morning: not quite raining, but certainly thinking about it. The light was pale and watery when it made its way through your curtains, and something about it was just soft enough to tempt you to stay in bed. You put off getting up for as long as you could before something deep inside you urged you out of bed. You cursed your work ethic as you sat up and dragged yourself out of bed. Even here at the end of the world, you couldn’t just laze around. Maybe it would have been different if Loki had been with you, but his side of the bed was empty and cold. You loved being able to wake up in his arms, but it made for some really unproductive days.</p><p>You fumbled through your morning routine and felt only marginally more awake by the time you were finished. The rest of the apartment was quiet. You rubbed your eyes as you padded down the hall, idly wondering where Loki could have gone. </p><p>There he was. You stopped just inside the doorway to the living room. Loki was standing in front of the window with his back to you. It looked like he was gazing out at the city, but, more realistically, you knew he wasn’t seeing any of it. Something about his posture made you certain that he was inside his own head, thinking about something. You hovered there for a few moments. Part of it was that you didn’t want to disturb him. Although it was the largest apartment you could afford without roommates, your place was pretty small. There wasn’t a lot of room for personal privacy, so when Loki agreed to hide out here with you until the lockdown was over, you’d had to start adjusting the way you used your space. But also, you just liked looking at him. </p><p>Silhouetted there against the grey light from the window, he looked like a masterpiece in a museum. You had to smile. He was wearing comfortable lounging-around clothes, but he held himself as though he were still wearing his elegant armor. He looked like he was rooted firmly to the ground, his stance powerful as he looked out the window. For a moment, you let yourself imagine that he was royalty here, standing above his kingdom and taking it all in. He liked it when you called him your King, but you didn’t just do it because he liked it. The power in him, even when he was just standing somewhere, was almost palpable. He was regal.</p><p>When you couldn’t take it any longer, you moved closer. Knowing him, he’d heard you get out of bed and had definitely heard you come down the hallway, but you still did your best to approach him silently. Finally, when he was within your reach, you slid your arms around his waist and pressed your face against his back.</p><p>You breathed him in. He smelled comforting and familiar. You could smell your laundry detergent on the fabric, and your soap on his skin, but, beneath that, you could smell Him. He smelled at once warm and crisp, like a roaring bonfire on a cold winter’s night. He smelled like the way the darkness wrapped around the two of you at night, when you held each other and talked until someone (usually you) fell asleep. He smelled like the way he laughed at you—or, more accurately, at the things you said—over dinner. He smelled like curling into him on the sofa, like drinking tea and playing with his hair as he read aloud to you. He smelled like Loki, like <i>your</i> Loki, like your King. </p><p>You rubbed your cheek against his back. The soft fabric of his shirt felt lovely against the solid muscle of his back. He was solid and formidable, immeasurably powerful. Between his strength and his magic, you knew he could have thrown you far away from him the moment you first put your arms around him but, even more importantly, you knew that he never would. For all the terror he’d wrought when he first came to Earth, you knew that there was a gentleness in him. Sometimes, when he caressed your face after kissing you, you could feel his fingers tremble. He often looked at you with a question in his eyes—<i>Why?</i>, or maybe <i>How?</i>—and it made your heart soar to be able to answer him with your mouth on his. Because you didn’t have the words to explain yourself to him, but your body called out to him all the same, and he always answered with enthusiasm.</p><p>You let your hands slip under the front of his shirt and press against his stomach. His muscles twitched beneath your touch, and a smile broke out across your face. He flexed when you touched him, sometimes: it didn’t feel like surprise, but like...like he wanted to show you what his body could do. After spending so long in the great hulking shadow of his brother, Loki was only just starting to appreciate his own leaner, lither form. You couldn’t keep your hands off him, of course. When you pointed out the way he flexed under your touch, he’d seemed almost embarrassed, but then you’d soothed the sting by leaving a trail of kisses along his bicep and up to his shoulder. Everything he did distracted you, whether he was aware of it or not. You smoothed your hands along his warm belly, letting your fingers trace the dips and curves of his muscles. When you heard him laugh, you let your hands go still, pressing just a little bit harder against him in hopes of easing the ticklish feeling in his skin.</p><p>Loki of Asgard was ticklish. You treasured that small fact with all your heart.</p><p>“Good morning, dear heart.” His voice rumbled backwards through his chest and against your cheek. You murmured a reply and rubbed your face a little more firmly against him. However this had happened—his coming to be, his coming to <i>Earth</i>, his interest in you, his presence in your living room—you were grateful for him beyond words. Sometimes it made you choke, made tears sting your eyes, having all this gratitude within you but not knowing where to send it. Maybe he understood. Sometimes, when the moonlight hit him just right as you laid together in bed, you thought you could see his eyes glittering at you.</p><p>He pried one of your arms off of him, but only so that he could turn around to face you. Then his arms were sliding around your shoulders. Your bodies just...fit. Maybe it was silly to think that a human body could ever be meant to be pressed against his godlike form, but you did it anyway. What was humanity if not the tendency to be silly sometimes? You tucked your head just under his chin, right where you belonged, and he pressed a kiss to the top of your head.</p><p>“Were you Thinking?” He was always thinking, but you’d come to refer to his darker times, his more introspective moments with a capital-T. You loved that he understood the extra emphasis in your voice.</p><p>“No, just thinking. Mostly about you.” He kissed you again and you didn’t fight the shiver that ran through you. He liked when your body responded to him like that. You liked when he was happy. “I was wondering when you’d join me.”</p><p>“You could have joined <i>me</i>.” Sometimes when he woke up before you, he woke you up by scattering gentle kisses across your face or letting his hands roam your body. You liked curling into him in the light of morning, liked sharing the warmth of your body under the covers with him. He always seemed still more open in the morning, like his body didn’t need to put up any shields whatsoever when he was covered with an armor of blankets.</p><p>“You looked like you were having a pleasant dream,” he said. He held you still tighter against him, and you closed your eyes. “You were smiling like an angel, and when I kissed your cheek you whined so sweetly at me that I couldn’t bear to wake you.”</p><p>Your face grew warm at his words, at the tender sound of his voice. Your past partners, they said all the right sweet things to you, but sometimes it felt like they were only going through the motions. It wasn’t hard to believe what he said, or at least to believe that he believed what he said. You tightened your arms around him and moved your head to kiss his chest through his shirt. “Wake me next time. You are better than the best dream, because you’re real.”</p><p>“Understood.”</p><p>He fell silent again, then, and the two of you stood there for a long time, each taking comfort in the other’s body even as the sunlight grew stronger around you.</p>
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